Blood 27: The Blood Demon

"Miss, can you look your parents in the eye and say you are proud of who you are right now?"

Melazofis’s words still echo in my mind.

I felt as though my head had been struck with a blunt weapon.

Reflecting on it, I now recognize my recent actions as utterly aberrant.

I lured a boy, then fed on his blood.

If my past self saw this, she would surely collapse.

And yet, I felt nothing toward it.

It seemed natural. Unthinking. I had acted without awareness.

Now, looking back, it was clearly abnormal.

And yet, even while recognizing it as such, I cannot summon any particular emotion toward it.

Abnormality has become normal.

I have become a vampire—body and soul—without realizing when it happened.

Thinking about it brings a faint sense of loneliness.

Ah… I can’t return to being human anymore.

Conversely, it’s a kind of loneliness that can be contained—just barely.

One day after the battle with the demon, I returned to the academy.

Within the academy, the incident was attributed to a mysterious monster. Its appearance and abilities remained unknown.

All witnesses besides me had died. The battlefield no longer resembled the forest’s original form.

It must have been destroyed by something of immense power—no other explanation exists.

The academy declared that I had defeated the monster.

Half correct. Half incorrect.

I did fight the demon, but the one I defeated was undoubtedly a counterpart of that black-clad master.

If I was so easily overpowered, then the demon who fought me must have met the same fate.

What happened to the demon afterward— I do not know.

Only told not to say foolish things to my master.

Yet, judging by what I’ve heard about this academy, my master must have intervened somewhere, twisted the situation.

If that’s the case, asking my master should reveal what became of that demon.

But I couldn’t ask.

My master appears at random when I’m not needed, yet vanishes completely when I need him.

Like a spider—fickle as a cat, drifting about at whim.

As a result, I am left in turmoil.

And Melazophis’s words remain lodged in my mind like a splinter.

Can I be proud of myself in front of my parents?

My parents were human. They could never be proud of me now.

I am a vampire.

My thoughts, values, even my way of living—entirely different.

Pride in being human—long abandoned.

Like casually tossing a scrap into a trash bin—without any particular burden or hesitation.

Had it not been pointed out, I wouldn’t have even realized it.

But now that I’ve recognized it, it’s different.

The distinction between human and vampire is clear.

It’s undeniable.

“Sophia, you defeated a monstrous entity? Impressive.”

Wald, the prince of the academy, offers me praise.

Normally, I’d respond with a natural “Thank you.”

But today, I cannot.

“Lady, can you now hold your head high before your parents?”

Melazophis’s words replay in my mind, as sharp and clear as a whisper at my ear.

At the same time, a sudden status check on Wald reveals the debuff: [Enchantment].

Nausea.

I turn my back on Wald without delay and begin to run.

She is hailed repeatedly by familiar faces she passes along the way.

Each time, the nausea intensified.

She rushes into the toilet and locks herself inside.

Nausea rises, but only a muffled groan escapes the mouth.

She pressed her mouth shut and leaned against the bathroom wall.

Something feels familiar.

This did not happen in this life, but in the previous life, I often hid in the toilet like this.

The bathroom’s overpowering scent of perfume only worsens the mood—hardly a place one would wish to retreat to.

There was nowhere else to run—what else could be done?

What am I doing, really.

Reborn, I have changed.

Her appearance had become impossibly beautiful, as if her former ugliness were a lie. Academic performance remained consistently at the top.

Everything unattainable in the previous life, obtained without exception.

Perhaps that is why.

I have changed too much.

There is almost no trace left of the former person—Kisaki Akiko—in my current existence.

The only thing remaining is envy toward my master.

Even that remains—like a mirror reflecting my own ugliness. It is not laughable. It is not amusing.

Ugly.

Right now, I am a monster in the deepest sense of human values.

And yet, I perform these acts without hesitation. No guilt. No doubt. I accept them as natural.

Because that is how a vampire is expected to be.

As a vampire, I am perfectly proper.

Exactly as if this were the daily routine of a vampire.

In truth, it was my daily routine.

"Miss, can you truly be proud of yourself in front of your parents?"

Before hearing Melazofis's words.

Pride?

What is pride?

What is there left for me to boast about now?

If my parents were still alive and saw me now, what would they think?

Everyone who sacrificed themselves to let me escape— the servants.

How do I appear to them?

At that thought, I instinctively pulled out the elongated canine tooth.

A sweet metallic taste spreads across the mouth.

To find pleasure in drinking one's own blood—truly, one has ceased to be human.

Hurl it into the toilet as though driving a canine tooth into place.

Yet in the next moment, a new fang had grown in place, as though the act of extraction had never occurred.

It seemed to say I could not return, as I stared blankly at the extracted canine tooth.

How can you possibly boast when you can no longer live as a human being?

I do not know.

I don't know.

I never wanted to become aware of this, if it meant I couldn't live as a human anymore.